Nic Cage And John Cusack Play It By The Books In The Frozen Ground Trailer

Well, that John Cusack/Nicolas Cage/Vanessa Hudgens true events movie you were all waiting for now has a trailer via Yahoo! Movies, which Hudgens herself introduces. It would have been more effective if Cage had introduced it while yelling over a snowblower, but you take what you get.

For a movie based on a real-life serial killer, The Frozen Ground’s trailer is amazingly bland and as colorless as the attractive snowy Alaskan backgrounds. Hudgens seems to be channeling her inner Brittany Murphy here, playing Cindy Paulson, a girl who escaped the clutches of killer Robert Hansen (Cusack), who murdered between 17 and 21 women between 1980 and 1983. Cage plays an Alaskan State Trooper who teams up with Cindy to track Hansen down to bring him to justice. The film also stars Radha Mitchell, Katherine LaNasa and Dean Norris, so the film probably can’t be below average, but it doesn’t look like it’ll be a highlight on anyone’s resumes.

What I want from a latter-day Cusack and Cage film is to see somebody go apeshit, and I’m not getting that vibe here at all. I’m not even getting an “Al Pacino in Insomnia” inkling; just formulaic film filler. Sadly, the film tries to ape Brad Pitt’s line in Se7en by having Cage gruffly whisper the awkwardly worded, “Have you ever seen anybody do anything like this before?” Not well played.

All that said, I’ll probably watch it one day, as it’s an interesting enough case. I just hope the next trailer does something more interesting than this did. For another design-by-numbers example, check out the film’s poster below. The Frozen Ground opens in theaters on August 23, 2013.